JC Penny CEO bad boss departure

“When assholes succeed,” Bob Sutton argues, “they usually do so despite their negative traits not because of them.” Sutton’s Good Boss, Bad Boss begs the question whether it’s worth any company’s bottom line to tolerate jerks. Steve Jobs was a well known bully tolerated for his genius and bottom line results returned for Apple, but let’s not forget Jobs was fired from Apple for being “famously combative”. The company lost millions because of him before making billions despite his antics.

After his own combative 17 months portraying himself as an all-knowing savior of the department store, JC Penny CEO Ron Johnson was fired on April 9th. Business Insider saw this coming long before the board of directors did, calling him the wrong man for the wrong job back in October 2012:

Make no mistake: Ron Johnson is in the midst of the retail disaster of the decade. His arrogance will cost thousands of people their jobs while destroying “America’s Favorite Brand.”

“His hubris finally did him in,” one former executive said. But it was Johnson’s catastrophic marketing decisions that makes this cautionary tale timeless fodder for business school professors. How he also managed to alienate employees and customers is nothing less than pure pure arrogance, according to another account:

He got rid of about 400 existing brands. In case shoppers weren’t getting the point that they weren’t good enough, Penney ran an Oscars ad telling customers they “deserve to look better.” “If you’re a certain customer and you’ve been shopping Penney’s, that’s kind of insulting,” a former executive said. “You’re going to come in and say, there’s nothing for me.”

His marketing decisions get even more ludicrous when one considers the $100 million lawsuit he instigated with Terry Lundgren, the chief of Macy’s, not to mention excessive plans to waste money on hair salons and boutique coffee shops, all while he made daily jet commutes between JC Penny headquarters in Plano, Texas and his home in California.

Finally, it is worth remembering where Ron Johnson acquired his particular style of dismissive arrogance, staff intimidation, and complete disregard for industry research. From 2000-2011 he worked for Steve Jobs at Apple. But while Jobs was wildly successful despite his negative traits, Ron Johnson demonstrates why most playground bullies are eventually shamed out of their places of power and made to sit in detention.

Related Posts

4 Comments

Lourdes F. Avery

In short, Steve Jobs had the money-making personality. To “make money” means to make a profit, to create a net economic value above and beyond the value of what’s used up or transformed in the process of producing. In a free market profits are no “accident” – and no vice. They reflect virtues. They are earned. Those who disdain profit-making only posture as moralists, for at root they decry the net creation of valuable wealth (production); for such critics the “moral” act isn’t to produce wealth but to surrender it (philanthropy), or to have “non-profits,” or worse, to generate negative net value (destruction), as occurs with “green jobs.” What’s sorely needed in our world is not green jobs but more “Green Jobs,” more entrepreneurs like the Apple co-founder who was so focused on making ever-more “green” – that is, more money and more profits.

This ode to the CEO of Apple exemplifies the influence and charisma extreme fans of Apple products (the so called “apple fanboys”) attribute to Steve Jobs. However, apparently he is hated with similar eagerness by others, exemplified by the excistence of a “we-hate-Steve-Jobs” petition site2. So, who is this person that creates such extreme emotions?

In short, Steve Jobs had the money-making personality. To “make money” means to make a profit, to create a net economic value above and beyond the value of what’s used up or transformed in the process of producing. In a free market profits are no “accident” – and no vice. They reflect virtues. They are earned. Those who disdain profit-making only posture as moralists, for at root they decry the net creation of valuable wealth (production); for such critics the “moral” act isn’t to produce wealth but to surrender it (philanthropy), or to have “non-profits,” or worse, to generate negative net value (destruction), as occurs with “green jobs.” What’s sorely needed in our world is not green jobs but more “Green Jobs,” more entrepreneurs like the Apple co-founder who was so focused on making ever-more “green” – that is, more money and more profits.

To be sure, Jobs was a complex man full of contradictions, says one of his biographers, Leander Kahney. Jobs was an espoused Zen Buddhist which is anti-materialist, yet built the ultimate company which advocates living a technologically materialistic life. In an age where leadership transparency is encouraged as part of a healthy democratic system, Jobs instilled a culture of secrecy and surveillance in Apple workplaces, complete with video cameras constantly monitoring engineers’ work, and a “need to know only” system of internal company communication.

Clients served:

Popular Posts

Stock photography allows branders and marketers to introduce what many agree are the four basic marketing emotions that get people to pay attention to an advertisement: Greed (75% off!), Vanity (Be the best!), Exclusivity (Limited edition!) and Emotion (Don’t lose in life!). Companies like Apple elicit exclusivity when new hardware flies off the shelf. The sports equipment industry knows that vanity is the great motivator for selling their products and major grocery chains rarely veer from catering to customers’ greed. Now, representatives from two of the richest media companies, Facebook and Getty Images, have teamed up in an attempt to force marketers to diversify their imaging strategy by stymieing the emotional female fear-mongering advertisement. Their message has more to do with the desire for marketers to diversify which emotions they are eliciting when portraying images of women. But marketing professionals are unlikely to respond unless positive emotion can outsell the negative. “Negativity is the backbone of the media. Negativity makes more

If websites came in ice cream flavors, many website entrepreneurs would think theirs a variety of Ben & Jerry’s. “Wait until you hear about this cool idea,” they say. “No, this one’s different – there’s something unique in this business recipe!” Never mind they’re probably trying to reinvent the wheel. Listen and nod. Being a website manager invites clients and acquaintances to offer endless ideas on their next great Internet offering. “That’s a great idea!” you say. “Now, Google it and see how many others are doing it already.” Listen and nod. Butter Beendone Before or Strawberry Pipe Dream? The point here is that most websites and ice cream flavors consist of the same basic ingredients. Although Baskin Robins famously claims 31 flavors, most of these flavors start with chocolate, vanilla or some common base, and then get condiments and branding to differentiate them from the others: Banana Nut Fudge Black Walnut Burgundy Cherry Butterscotch Ribbon Cherry Macaroon Chocolate Chocolate Almond more

The Internet started as an anything-goes place for design expression, a place where web designers could try out flavors of communication, then evolve useability standards in unique ways. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s there was a sense of progression both organic and accepting. Failure was measured in terms of not trying. There were no standards, so that web designers could try anything. Today, the commodity that is web design has turned against experimental design in favor of prefabricated templates based on compatibility with Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. Too often, “good design” is based on the generic website design: Social media icons, search box, menu, slider, blog section and footers. We web designers should celebrate the innovators who break with standards and innovate interface. 1980s web designs During the peak of the nylon era, the Internet was a network of primitive university and government servers hosting mostly static HTML pages. Design involved blinking buttons embedded in bordered tables displaying shouting fonts more

Fresh in the memories of airline travelers are the new fees charged to check luggage through to destinations. First appalled, then angered and finally resolved, travelers watched as American Airlines set the precedent and other airlines jumped on board. A similar trend is emerging among popular social networking websites, specifically, charging for a service we’ve all taken for granted: free messaging to other users. Their representatives claim the new fees provide a means to reduce SPAM and prevent overfull in boxes. While LinkedIn.com has long required annual fees of a minimum $39.95 per year for users to send unrestricted messages to others outside their linked network, a wild rumor serviced in January from the absurdest online tabloid The Weekly World News that Facebook will start charging fees to use the service: According to sources outside the company, Facebook is planning a subscription-based service with monthly fees starting at $0.99 for a basic “friendship” which allows for the posting of text more

Edward Hadas at Reuters is so sure Bitcoin will collapse that he wrote an early obituary eulogizing the loss of confidence in a baseless cryptocurrency, caused by an illicit and valueless speculation war. Ignoring this death knell includes a long list of Bitcoin investors, each of whom harnesses arbitrage to stabilize the currency. A futures market for Bitcoin already exists and others are on the way. These proponents also point to the world’s first Bitcoin ATM installed in a Vancouver coffee shop in October 2013 and the others springing up since. It would seem the cryptocurrency craze has reinforced usable modularity across the spectrum – from investing to retail banking. The Bitcoin digital currency, which exists as software, is created by solving complex tasks embedded in a program through a process called mining. Once successfully mined, the currencies can be bought and sold via online exchanges. Websites like startbitcoin.com help novices learn to mine Bitcoins, and the underlying open source more

In the 1978 ‘Rescue from Gilligan’s Island’, actor Russell Johnson shows the Professor in a reinvention predicament. After returning to work at a university, he discovers all his inventions made (while stranded on the island) had been invented already, among them the Frisbee and skateboard. His frustration makes him want to give up the world he’s come back to. Reinventing the wheel has become a modern epidemic plaguing Internet technologists, and some are even giving up on innovation and settling into parlaying the same flawed technology because of a fear of trademark infringement or, more frightening still, because they think it just can’t be done any better. Blogger Tim Kastelle has written much about what he calls the Innovation Problem (IP), which advocates that we approach innovation through idea management, an effective counter to the pitfalls of commercialization. “In the commercialisation view, the only way to win is to have a great idea, protect the IP from it, and bring more

Like it or not, sensationalism is how to write a great headline. As long as you are concise and factual you will not get penalized by Google. The way to a great SEO campaign is to follow this great new headline template policy. You’ll get clicks again and again after and your website manager cred will skyrocket! Template for a good headline … How’d you like to [new great thing] that [creates awesome outcome]? Do you know how [great outcome] with [new remarkable thing]? There’s a way to [great outcome] with this [new great thing]. If you knew about [new great thing] would you be interested? The way to a [great outcome] is to [new great thing]. Write a great headline for links to other blogs Linking to posts on your friend’s blogs or another business website allows you to display their content on your site – and build relevance with Google! Top-10 lists can be quite effective (i.e., North more

The South Asian head bobble has its roots in British colonialism when subjects were too afraid a “yes” or “no” answer would contradict the one asking a question. Today’s South Asians are more than willing to contradict you without fear of reprisal, but their cordial manners often hide their true feelings. Innuendo, after all, is where cultural divide wedges itself. Where westerners perceive apathy in an Indian, the conversation should proceed until a firm “yes” can be established. “We’ll try” or “maybe” probably means “no”. And when communicating with anyone from a different culture, one should always avoid sarcasm or implying something. For instance, “Let’s get that project done Friday” will likely delay your project. Instead, “The deadline is Friday for that project” makes it happen. Business conversations between westerners and Asians often break down because sensibilities are insulted by mistake and often without even knowing. Jumping into business before wading through the waters of cordiality is a frequent mistake. more

On February 5th Twitter announced that slowing sales and disappointing user growth means they need to reconfigure their design and core functionality. Twitter’s chief executive, Dick Costolo, told disappointed stock holders that twitter is desperately working on making its interface easier for users to use. “We will continue to invest in making Twitter a more visually engaging medium,” he said. “It will be a combination of changes introduced over the year that we believe will begin to change the slope of the growth curve.” But could bad design really explain the nearly 25% erosion in its stock price? Absolutely. Twitter is facing a slowdown in user growth, admitting that only 3.9% quarterly growth is half what previous quarters experienced. The shocking drop in the company’s valuation could point to a hyperinflated stock price, but New York Times writer Vindu Goel offers that the redesigned feature set available on Twitter has become too difficult to use: Twitter has finally acknowledged what more

Website managers are showing their teeth a year after Adobe’s money grab. Despite popular media outlets who endorsed Adobe’s marketing blitz that customers would love it, customers clearly do not. Last year the mammoth software provider declared an end to the install and said they would move to a subscription model whereby users would be required to pay a monthly fee for access to their software. The model is nothing revolutionary, but it does challenge the bank books for struggling website managers and small businesses who will see the cost of running software skyrocket because of the change. For Adobe Dreamweaver a one-time install ($239.88/year) versus the cloud-based annual subscription ($239.88/year) suggests you’ll be paying a lot more for the cloud-based solution over time. Adobe counters that the software includes automatic updates as well as cloud-based services that add significant value to the software. Stephen Shankland wrote last year that “Customer enthusiasm for the Creative Cloud, combined with the awkwardness more

“Employees should be coding or selling. Otherwise, fire them!” So goes a new managerial dictum blustered by managers keen to pass the vitriol as some sort of clever distributive work policy to be followed by their employees. I first heard the sell it, build it or get fired quip as part of a “motivational” speech delivered by a browbeating CEO to our division, all of us looking for leadership to overcome a quarter of disappointing earnings. But while his aim was to motivate, the cheeky threat had many of us looking for new jobs the next week despite the fact he was full of hot hair. He was eventually fired when his perennial bullying and your-with-me-or-against-me style management was realized to be contrary to fundamental egalitarian leadership policies on which the company prided itself. But not before much of the company’s talent already fled elsewhere. It’s the or get fired part that misses the mark. It hints at a style more

The tech world is full of bullying in the workplace. Strategists revere Oracle’s Larry Ellison for alienating workers and customers to the tune of billions in annual revenues. Thanks to Hollywood, we’ve seen how Mark Zuckerberg acted during the early days of Facebook. Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, even boasted about the horrible things he did to get ahead and how fabulous his business became because of it. Despite all the politically correct rhetoric, it would appear big tech doesn’t really want to get rid of their bullies – they’re too profitable. That’s why those who work for them need to take a more measured approach: If you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t – better to go somewhere else. A few years ago my co-worker told me there were two paths to take with our bullying boss: “You’re his bootlicker or enemy.” But my success had little to do with blandishments and flattery for bosses. I had more